co'v<; d^-II- 






-''^&: 






CccC * 



4zi:'-^ 












<1 <L 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 'I 




=^<£4S:^^? 



5 fl^ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, i^ 



®'*^^?'^^*^»?€?^3e^«€-?^^S^eS<*^ 















-cs^cr c:c ' 
























^ CCQCd '-' 






X. <: cccgz ■ ■ 
c d. <<:<r. ' 



< t 


f_X__ 


<A ■ 


■..<_ 


< ■ 


•c 


c< 


< 


<v 


:^ -c; 


cc. 


X 


• <--■ 


..^ <r 


c 


5C< 


r 


o-<r 


<r c 


c 


C<:.^ 


.< ■ 


Cc 


'cc;. 


..<^ 


c< 


r <&.«_ 


' <£: <- 


" : :<L'.'d 


r 


C' <- 


r~ 


c^ t 




<1 


|f" . 


G - 


t, '•^C- A<.'-1 


t_' 


c ^ (-C 


a^^" 


c; c 






ccsr 


















& l;^sl^v 









CSC < ^ ' 









CccC 









It 












d 









d<L S 

-OCT- ^'^51 

1 <& ■ <!. 



-•cr c C^ 












CL <ti 





















'SC^^J^ 






c c < 



dc C C 



<5L d 









t\0^ 



A CRITICISM 



MR. WM. B. REED'S ASPERSIONS 



CHARACTER OF DR. BENJAMIN RUSH, 



WITH AN INCIDENTAL CONSIDERATION OF 



GENEEAL JOSEPH EEED'S CHAEACTEE. 



MEMBER OF THE PHILADELPHIA BAR. 



" And he that stands upon a slippery place, 
Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up." — King John. 



w 



'^^■^nf^^ 







PHILADELPHIA: 
COLLINS, PRINTER, 705 JAYNE STREET. 

1867. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Undeestan^din^g that the descendants of Dr. Ben- 
jamin Rnsh will not reply to Mr. Wm. B. Reed's 
recent assault upon their ancestor, the writer, per- 
sonally acquainted with many of them, and, as an 
American, indignant at Mr. Reed's attempt to de- 
j)reciate the national inheritance in the fair fame of 
the Founders of our Independence, by exhibiting to 
the public as a true picture of one of these patriots, a 
portrait which, with no light other than that of a 
treacherous imagination, he has outlined by little 
stabs with a stiletto steeped in the gall of his pas- 
sions, has felt impelled to do so himself and to 
unmask the real motives of the attack. 

In doing this, however, he has ventured upon no 
systematic review of Mr. Reed's work, and has re- 
spected the feelings of those universally esteemed 
descendants of General Reed, who have never joined 



4 

in Mr. Wm. B. Reed's efforts to force their ancestor 
into an undue prominence, nor in his assaults upon 
those whom the sanctity of the grave should have 
shielded. He has therefore declined a discussion of 
the charge of treason so frequently made, and, in 
support of those he has considered, has neither 
searched for new materials, nor availed himself of 
old ones not already known to the public through 
the Cadwalader Pamphlet, and the "Life and Corre- 
spondence of Joseph Reed, by his Grandson." 

J. G. J. 

Philadelphia, 

13th May, 18G1. 



NOTE. 

Mr. Benjamin Rush's Reply, which has been received since the comple- 
tion of this Criticism, has removed one of the reasons which induced its 
preparation. 



A CRITICISM 



MR. WM. B. EEED'S ASPERSIONS. 



There are, in this community, many who, whilst 
they might favorably consider an application for the 
defendant's pardon, in Commonwealth vs. Eeed, have 
ever felt it their duty to frustrate, not only his 
accomplished "advocate's" unprofessional attempts 
to set aside a verdict, which has stood, for upwards 
of eighty-four years, unappealed from and unshaken, 
but still more his eftbrts to substitute for the notoriety 
which justly attached to his client the greatness 
which was not his due, by making astronomical 
observations in the Revolutionary sky through a 
telescope reversed whenever the Satellite Reed was 
not in the field of vision. They have done this by 
republishing, twice or thrice since 1847, the un- 
answered and unanswerable charges, specifications, 
and proofs, of the Cadwalader indictment. 

There are others, however, of whom the writer, 
until recently, was one, who, in admiration of the 



6 

untiring industry with which Mr. Reed has so long 
labored at his Herculean task of cleanino: the Auo^ean 
stable of his grandfather's reputation, and still more 
out of regard for the sanctity of the grave and the 
susceptibilities of the living, have felt no disposition 
to interfere with his endeavors to deceive thC' public 
as to the exceeding smallness of his patrimony in 
that particular in which, according to Home Tooke, 
the children of Sir John Scott were so unfortunate. 
Such interference, however, has now become an im- 
perative duty, since, not content quietly to submit to 
his failure to remove the remains of his ancestor from 
the Valley of Humiliation in which, though un- 
honored, they were mouldering undisturbed, to that 
Laurel Hill in which lie entombed only the "ac- 
credited''' patriots of the Revolution, Mr. Reed has 
striven, in his revenge, to disfigure and overturn the 
monuments which the gratitude of posterity had 
erected over the honored dead. 

During General Reed's lifetime he was publicly 
charged by a responsible accuser, upon adduced 
testimony, with, 

First. Such cowardly disaffection during the month 
of December, 1776, whilst holding a responsible 
position in the American Army, as inclined him to 
consider favorably tlfe propriety of applying for the 
protection offered by the British Commissioners to 
those who accepted it prior to January, 1777. 



Second. An actual application for this protection. 

This second count, for the reason given in the 
Introduction, will not be discussed. If, goaded into 
desperation by Mr. Bancroft's mere allusion to what, 
in the shape of formal charges and proofs in a 
pamphlet published upwards of eighty-four years 
ago, neither his ancestor, himself, nor any of his 
immediate liescendants ever refuted, Mr. Reed has 
succeeded in demonstrating that his grandfather was 
unjustly accused of being a traitor, none more than 
the writer will rejoice. Though he may not de- 
sire to have General Reed canonized, even in the 
order of " Latter-Day Saints," he cannot, if he was 
innocent, sufficiently deplore the singular hardness 
of the fate by which, without concert or mutual 
knowledge, he became the victim of entries in pri- 
vate "Journals," of the adverse "rumors" of the 
enemy's camp, of the accusations of his countrymen, 
and of the harsh criticisms of travellers. How 
thoroughly Mr. Reed has succeeded in demolishing 
the " Donop Diary," and in convicting Mr. Bancroft 
of perversions and false assertions, with materials 
admitted to have been furnished by the "malicious 
defamer" himself; and how far, even upon his own 
version,* the words " Colonel Reed having received a 
protection" are to be taken as the statement, in 

* Page 91 of Mr. Reed's Reply. 



8 

parenthesis, of a fact, or as a part of the rumors, 
must be for others to discuss and decide. 

This charge, however, does not necessarily imply 
the existence of a treacherous heart. General Reed's 
sympathies must have ever been, not with the British, 
but with the people amongst whom his life ha(J been 
passed; and if he was led astray, it must have been 
by his fears. If this "Reed," which the sun of King 
George's royal favor could not warp, was broken at 
last, it was not until after it had been "shaken by 
the winds" of adversity which swept with such ter- 
rible force over the sands and through the pines of 
l^&w Jersey. "Whilst he lay at Burlington, with his 
family safely disposed of, on that memorable Decem- 
ber morning when the days of grace were so nearly 
numbered, he must have still hoped for news of such 
a victory for America as would render safe, in the 
future, adhesion to her cause. His " Pomroy" letter, 
though manifesting no desire to lead or even to join, 
the forlorn hope he counselled, shows an anxiety not 
only that it should be formed, but also that it should 
attack with success, before "the sixty days expire 
which the commissioners have allowed." 

"There is in this country," says Mr. Reed, "a class 
of men, happily not numerous, who take pleasure in 
disparaging the accredited patriots of the first Revo- 
lution. They do so either from hereditary or2^ersonal 
animosity, or on a principle of paradox and contradic- 



9 

tion." Before attempting to demonstrate the truth 
of Dr. Rush's statements concerning General Reed, 
and the groundlessness of Mr. W. B. Reed's attacks, 
which will involve an incidental consideration of the 
first of the above counts, it will be shown that the 
attack was unnecessary and unprovoked, and could 
only have originated in the instincts of one of the 
class which Mr. Reed, fearlessly disregarding the 
odium attaching to the accomplice-informer, has so 
graphically described. 

JSTot altogether unmindful of the public censure 
usually visited upon assaults like his, Mr. Reed has 
endeavored, by innuendoes, to stigmatize Dr. Rush 
as the persecutor of his grandfather, and to fasten 
upon him the authorship of the " Brutus" queries and 
of the charges in the Cadwalader pamphlet ; but, he 
has adduced no proof either that Dr. Rush was 
" Brutus," that he commenced the attack upon General 
Reed, or that he did more than give his testimony 
when summoned by a gentleman whose assertions 
had been questioned. That any other member of Dr. 
Rush's family ever, directly or indirectly, raised hand, 
voice, or pen, against General Reed or his descend- 
ants, Mr. Reed does not even hint. His failure to 
produce any such evidence, after thirty years' search 
with a microscope, proves its non-existence. 

The nature of Dr. Rush's connection with the 
charges against General Reed will best appear in a 
brief history of the controversy, divested of what, in 



10 

other cases, Mr. Keed has called "gloss" — China 
gloss as it will be termed, when used by him. 

Rumors — many of which reached him* — ^liad been 
for years circulating in Philadelphia, charging Gene- 
ral Keed upon the authority of General Cadwalader 
with contemplated, and upon that of Major Lennox 
with consummated, treachery, during the month of 
December, 1776. Though, as a ]3olitician, he must 
have been keenly sensitive to the importance of in- 
stantly meeting them with indignant denial and over- 
whelming proof. General Reed never noticed them 
until those which rested on the authority of General 
Cadwalader, in the form of queries, signed " Brutus," 
were published in the " Independent Gazetteer" of 
Sept. 7, 1782. This publication, rather than General 
Cadwalader's frequent statements in conversation 
and the often repeated rumors, has been capriciously 
designated by Mr. Reed, the commencement of the 
attack. General Reed then, for the first time, de- 
manded of General Cadwalader a contradiction of 
the report; but, having received in its stead an 
emphatic and unqualified confirmation, he published 
a pam^phlet in which he joined issue with the latter 
on some of his statements. In March, 1783, Gene- 
ral Cadwalader published his celebrated reply. In 
connection with other certificates from Thomas Pryor, 

* " After repeated gross and illiberal attacks of every kind from weakness 
to treason, for great pains have been taken to prove me in the interests of 
the enemy," &c. Letter of Reed to Greene in June, 1781. 



11 

Alexander Hamilton, P. Dickinson, John Kixon, 
Jacob Kush, Joseph Ellis, Franklin Davenport, Wil- 
liam Bradford, David Lennox, and Francis Nichols, 
there appeared one from Dr. Rush, in which it was 
stated that, whilst holding a responsible position in 
the army, General Reed, in conversation with him, 
had displayed great want of firmness, had regretted 
that the war was ever commenced, and had justified 
the conduct of those who had deserted the cause. It 
was in these words : — 

A few days before the battle of Trenton, on the 26th of De- 
cember, 1116, I rode with Mr, Reed from Bristol to headquarters 
near New Town. In the course of our ride, our conversation 
turned upon public affairs, when Mr. Reed expressed himself in 
the manner following. 

He spoke with great respect of the bravery of the British 
troops, and with great contempt of the cowardice of the Ameri- 
can, and more especially of the New England troops. So great 
was the terror inspired by the British soldiers into the minds of 
our men, that he said, when a British soldier was brought as a 
prisoner to our camp, our soldiers viewed him at a distance as a 
superior kind of being. 

Upon my lamenting to him the supposed defection of Mr. 
Dickinson, who it was unjustly said, had deserted his country, 
he used the following words: "Damn him — I wish the devil had 
him, when he wrote the Farmer's letters. He has begun an oppo- 
sition to Great Britain which we have not strength to finish." 

Upon my lamenting thai a gentleman of his acquaintance had 
submitted to the enemy, he said " that he had acted properly, and 
that a man who had a family did right to take that care of them." 

The whole of his conversation upon the subject of our affairs 
indicated a great despair of the American cause. 



12 

Upon my going to Baltimore, to take my seat in Congress, the 
latter end of January, I mentioned the above conversation to my 
brother. I likewise mentioned it to the Hon. John Adams, Esq., 
with whom I then lived in intimacy, a day or two after his return 
from Boston to Congress. I did not mention it with a view of 
injuring Mr. Reed, for I still respected him, especially as I then 
believed that the victory at Trenton had restored the tone of his 
mind and dissipated his fears, but to show Mr. Adams an instance 
of a man possessing and exercising military spirit and activity, 
and yet deficient in political fortitude. To which I well remember 
Mr. Adams replied in the following words : " The powers of the 
human mind are combined together in an infiuite variety of ways." 

BENJAMIN KUSH. 

Philadelphia, March 3, 1783. 

General Cadwalader charged General Reed with a 
rapidly forming intention to imitate the treachery 
which, in the conversation with Dr. Rush, had been 
merely justified. He said; — 

I had occasion to speak with you a few days before the intended 
attack on the 26th December, ItTG, and requested you to retire 
with me to a private room at my quarters ; the business related 
to intelligence; a general conversation, however, soon took place, 
concerning the state of public affairs; and after running over a 
number of topics — in an agony of mind, and despair strongly 
expressed in your countenance and tone of voice, you spoke 
your apprehensions concerning the event of the contest — that our 
affairs looked very desperate, and we were only making a sacrifice 
of ourselves; that the time of General Howe's offering pardon 
and protection to persons who should come in before the 1st 
January, 1771, was nearly expired, and that Galloway, the Aliens, 
and others, had gone over, and availed themselves of that pardon 
and protection, offered by the said proclamation ; that you had 
a family, and ought to take care of them, and that you did not 



13 

understand following the wretched remains (or remnants) of a 
broken army ; that your brother (then a colonel or lieutenant- 
colonel of militia — but you say of the five months' men, which is 
not material) was then at Burlington, with his family ; and that 
you had advised him to remain there, and, if the enemy took pos- 
session of the town, to take a protection and swear allegiance ; 
and in doing so he would be perfectly justifiable. 

This was the substance, and I think nearly the very words ; 
but that '■'■you did not understand following the wretched remains 
(or remnants) of a broken army^'''' I perfectly remember to be the 
very words you expressed. 

Mr. Philemon Dickinson said : — 

Hermitage, 5th October, 1782. 

Dear General, — In the winter of IVIG, after we had crossed 
the Delaware, General Reed, in conversation with me, said that 
he and several others of my friends were surprised at seeing me 
there. I told him I did not understand such a conversation ; 
that as I had engaged in the cause from principle, I was deter- 
mined to share the fate of my country; to which he made no 
reply, and the conversation ended. As I had the honor of com- 
manding the militia of New Jersey, both duty and inclination led 
me to use every exertion in support of a cause I had engaged in 
from the purest motives. I was really much surprised at General 
Reed's manner, considering the station he then acted in, and his 
reputation as a patriot; but I considered it as the eflfect of de- 
spondency, from the then gloomy prospect of our affairs. 

This I mentioned to several of my friends at the time, who all 
viewed it in the same point of light. 

I am, dear General, yours, 

P. DICKINSON. 

General Cadwalader. 



14 

Mr. John !Nixon said : — 

I do hereby certify that, in December, 17T6, while the militia 
lay at Bristol, General Reed, to the best of my recollection and 
belief, upon my inquiring the news, and what he thought of our 
affairs in general, said that appearances were very gloomy and 
unfavorable ; that he was fearful or apprehensive the business was 
nearly settled, or the game almost up, or words to the same effect. 
That these sentiments appeared to me very extraordinary and 
dangerous, as I conceived they would, at that time^ have a very 
bad tendenc}^, if publicly known to be the sentiments of General 
Reed, who then held an appointment in the army of the first con- 
sequence. 

JOHN NIXON. 

Philadelphia, March 12, 1783. 

Col. Joseph Ellis said : — 

Joseph Ellis, a colonel of militia, in the county of Gloucester, 
and State of New Jersey, doth hereby certifj^ that, upon the retreat 
of a body of militia from before Count Donop, in the neighbor- 
hood of Mount Holly, in Burlington County, in the month of 
December, 1776, he met with Charles Pettit, Esq., then Secretary 
of the said State ; that a conversation ensued between them re- 
specting the situation of the public dispute at that period ; that 
Mr. Pettit, in said conversation, representing that our affairs were 
desperate, Col. Ellis endeavored to dissuade him from such an 
opinion, when Mr. Pettit replied, "What hurts me more than all 
is, my brother-in-law. General Reed, has (or I believe he has) 
given up the contest." That a good deal more passed between 
Mr. Pettit and Col. Ellis during the said conversation, but omitted 

here, as being thought unnecessary. 

JOSEPH ELLIS. 

Woodbury, March 9, 1783. 

Mr. William Bradford said : — 

These are to certify that, in December, 1776, and Januarj^, 1777, 
I, the subscriber, was major of the second battalion of Phila- 



15 

delphia militia, whereof John Ba3^ard was colonel, and then laj^ 
at Bristol, and part of the time opposite Trenton, on the Penn- 
sylvania side. That while we lay at Bristol, Joseph Reed, Esq., 
joined us; that during his being there and near Trenton, he often 
went out for intelligence, as Col. Bayard told me, over to Bur- 
lington, in which place the enemy frequently were; that being 
absent frequently all day and all night, I as frequently inquired 
what could become of Gen. Reed. Col. Bayard often answered 
me, he feared he had left us, and gone over to the enemy. One 
time in particular, being absent two daj^s and two nights, if not 
three nights, Col. Bayard came to me with great concern, and 
said he was fully persuaded Gen. Reed was gone to join the 
enemy and make his peace. I asked him how he could possibly 
think so of a man who had taken so early a part, and had acted 
steadily. He replied, he was persuaded it was so ; for he knew 
the General thought it was all over, and that we could not stand 
against the enemy ; and at the same time wept much. I endea- 
vored all I could to drive such notions from him, but he was so 
fully persuaded that he had left us, and gone over to the enemy, 
that arguing about the matter was only loss of time; Col. Bayard 
often making mention that he knew his sentiments much better 
than I did. After being absent two or three nights. Gen. R^d 
returned, and I never saw more joy expressed than was by Col. 
Baj^ard; he declaring to me that he was glad Gen. Reed was 
returned, for he was fully convinced in his own mind, that he was 

gone over to the enemy. 

WILLIAM BRADFORD. 

Manor of Moreland, Philadelphia County, March 15, 1783. 

Major David Lennox said : — 

Having been called on by General Cadwalader respecting a 

report which has been propagated concerning Mr. Joseph Reed 

I declare on my honor the circumstances are as follows. In the 
spring of 1780 I obtained permission for an interview with my 



16 

brother at Elizabethtown. In the course of conversation, one day, 
he happened to mention that there were men among ns, who held 
the first offices, who applied for protection from the British while 
they la}^ in New Jersey. I was alarmed at this assertion, and 
insisted on knowing who they were: — He said that when the 
British army lay in Jersey, in 1176, Count Donop commanded at 
Bordentown ; that he was often at that officer's quarters,' and pos- 
sessed some degree of his confidence; that one day an inhabitant 
came into their lines, with an application frotn 3Ir. Joseph Reed, 
the purport of ivhich was, to know tvhether he could have protection 
for himself and his pirojMrty (there was another person included 
in the application whose name it is not necessary here to men- 
tion). The man was immediately ordered for execution, but it 
was prevented by the interposition of my brother and some other 
persons, who had formerly known him. Perhaps Mr. Reed and 
his friends may say that Count Donop would not have ordered 
the man executed, had he not thought he came for intelligence. 
No doubt that officer would have justified his conduct by putting 
upon the footing of a sp}', but why was another person included 
in the application, and one who was not looked on as a trifling 
character? His name I will mention to any one Avho will apply 
to me. However, my brother said the man who was sent with 
the application was a poor peasant, and the most unfit person in 
the world to send for intelligence ; this argument was what had 
weight with Count Donop, and which saved his life. These cir- 
cumstances being mentioned by a brother, and which he declared 
to be true, naturally produced an alteration in my sentiments of 
Mr. Reed ; for, previous to this, there were few men of whom I 
entertained so high an opinion. On my return to Philadelphia, 
I made no secret of what I heard ; indeed, I thought it my duty 
to mention it publicl}^, that it might prevent further power being 
put into the hands of a man who might make a bad use of it. 
The report circulated daily, and I was often called on to mention 
the circumstances, which I always did, and which I should have 



17 

done to Mr. Reed, had he applied to me. I remember, among the 
number who came to me was Major Thomas Moore, who said he 
intended to inform Mr. Reed ; but whether he did or not, I cannot 
pretend to say. 

There is another thing I wish to mention. My brother came 
into the river in a flag of truce, on special application of our 
commissary of prisoners, to take a mmiber of prisoners who were 
exchanged, to save us the expense and trouble of sending them 
by land; this was in the month of Maj^, 1781. He was detained, 
about nine miles below the city, upwards of four weeks, and never 
permitted to visit it, although application was made for that pur- 
pose by several captains of vessels, who had been prisoners, and 
to whom he had rendered civilities. I declined making applica- 
tion myself, as I supposed my being in the service from the com- 
mencement of the war, and having endured a rigorous confinement 
for eighteen months, in the worst of times, to have been sufficient 
to have obtained permission for a brother to have been in my 
house, in preference to a cabin in a small vessel in a river; how- 
ever, I endeavored to make his situation as agreeable as possible, 
by visiting him often, and b}^ taking my friends with me. I re- 
member Col. Francis Nichols went with me, one day, to whom 
my brother mentioned Mr. Reed's intended desertion, and who, 
I doubt not, will acknowledge it, on any person's applying to 
him ; he is at present in Virginia, but is expected in town in a 

few days. 

DAVID LENNOX. 

Mr. Francis IN^ichols said : — 

Having been called upon, b}^ General Cadwalader, to certify, 
so far as my knowledge extends, as to the matter hereinafter 
mentioned, I do declare that in the spring of the year 1*781 I 
went with Major Lennox, of this city, on board of a flag of truce 
vessel, then lying in the river Delaware, where she had arrived 
from New York, and heard Mr. Robert Lennox, deputy commis- 
2 



18 

sary of prisoners under the British king, say that in the year of 
1776 a person had arrived at Count Donop's quarters, near Bor- 
deutown, in New Jersey, who told the Count that he had been 
sent to liim by General Reed and another person, whose name I 
do not think necessary to mention, to procure a protection for 
them ; that the Count refused to grant them a protection in that 
manner, and was about to treat the person who had a:pplied to 
him as a spy, but was prevented by the entreaties of the said 
Robert Lennox and some other gentlemen. 

FRANCIS NICHOLS. 

Philadelphia, ITtb March, 1783. 

This mass of testimony, more damning than that 
of Dr. Hnsh, shows that he was not the " chief wit- 
ness" against General Keed, and that he was not 
exceptionally active in the last stages of the contro- 
versy. What was his connection with its earlier 
ones? 

Mr. Reed wishes his readers to infer, what he does 
not dare positively to assert, that Dr. Rush was 
" Brutus." As an unequalled specimen of literary 
thimble-rigging, three of his paragraphs are given, in 
which, with the lightning's rapidity, he makes Rush 
disappear under Brutus, Brutus under Rush, and 
then both to disappear, widely separated, forever. 

" The newspapers of the date attribute it to Dr. Benjamin Rush, 
and, as he subsequent!}^ made himself a chief witness in support 
of the acciisations against Mr. Reed, was bitterly hostile to him, 
and was addicted to this mode of secret assault ; there is reason 
for attributing to his busy pen the initiation of this wretched con- 
trovers}'" — a controversy which maintains its character in Mr. 
Reed's hands. " But, if Dr. Rush be ' Brutus,' and this, on the 



19 

evidence, is my belief; if it is he who started this wretched con- 
troversy, then his relation to the whole affair is widely different." 
" If Dr. Rush was ' Brutus,' it is A^erj^ clear that, so far as he is 
concerned, the allegata and probata strangely conflict ; for the 
' Queries of Brutus' and the certificate of Rush do not refer to 
the same facts, or similar facts, in any single point of resemblance. 
Why, one may ask, this discrepancy, the agents or authors being 
the same ? Was it that, one accusation being made anonymously, 
another was purposely held back to be used as a sort of corrobo- 
ration? Why was it, 'Brutus' being Rush, that the queries 
referred to what Mr. Reed is reported to have said to 'the com- 
manding officer at Bristol,' and not at all to what he said to the 
companion of the ride to Newtown ? If Dr. Rush was ' Brutus,' 
or, indeed, if he were only ' Brutus' ' chief authority," &c. &c. 
" Brutus never came from his ambush^ 

Did it never occur to Mr. Reed whilst shaping and 
reshaping his query, " Why this discrepancy, the 
agents and authors being the same," that the riddle 
he propounded was akin to the celebrated problem 
in specific gravity with which King Charles so long 
puzzled the savans, and that it was only upon his 
assumption of what did not exist, that any question 
arose ? Fascinating as the athletic amusement of 
setting up and knocking down ten-pins may be, to 
one who has never previously indulged in other 
exercise than the turning of political somersets, it 
is astonishing to see such ardor in the game as con- 
fuses the player's recollection of the fact that the 
pins over whose downfall he rejoices were never in 
jeopardy until placed there at his own instance. 



20 

As 'Brutus' never alluded to the conversation 
with Dr. Rush, but quoted from that with General 
Cadwalader, which was matter of public notoriety, 
why identify him with the former rather than with 
one of that host of enemies of whose numbers Gene- 
ral Reed so bitterly complained? Because he was a 
" chief witness ?" It has been shown that he Avas 
not. Because he Avas "bitterly hostile?" So were 
hundreds of General Reed's cotemporaries. Because 
"he was addicted to this mode of secret assault?" 
'No such habit has been proven. 

In Mr. Reed's abuse of Dr. Rush he has acted in 
anything but the Biblical spirit, on the Biblical 
maxim, " It is more blessed to give than to receive ;" 
but he has attacked with such bitter hostility and 
with so little regard to success in his avowed design, 
that his course must be attributed to some cause 
other than the one he has assigned. Must we explain 
it by quoting from Mr. Reed in his own condem- 
nation ? 

" A calumny may have been buried in obscurity for 
centuries and millenaries, and at length some literary 
truffle dog will hunt it out." Is it to the instincts of 
" the literary truffle dog," whose Roman nose, more 
Roman at least than his virtue, lacks the trueness of 
scent which characterizes the convoluted nostrils of 
his prototype, that we must attribute this exhuming 
of what, even with " China gloss," hardly rises to the 
dignity of calumny? 



21 

Or, must we attribute it to the spirit of the next of 
kin to the literary truffle dog — the dog in the man- 
ger — to Mr. Reed's determination, his hoisting pro- 
cess having failed, to still place General Reed on a 
level with the accredited patriots of the Revolution, 
by dragging the latter down? Did he hope, in his 
ancestor's words, provided he could afterwards sur- 
reptitiously trim oif its blackened wick, and supply 
a more modern illuminating material from his own 
manufactory, that the ancestral "candle would shine 
better if every other was extinguished ?" 

Having thus shown the animus and unprovoked 
nature of Mr. Reed's attack on Dr. Rush, it remains 
to show its want of foundation, which will be done 
by attempting to demonstrate the following proposi- 
tions, involving necessarily an incidental considera- 
tion of many of the specifications of the first of the 
above counts. The peculiar line of defence, an attack 
on the character of the witnesses for the common- 
wealth, which alone seemed open to Mr. Reed after 
eighty-four years' deliberation, is one only adopted 
in very desperate cases, inasmuch as the citadel is 
left entirely unprotected, if the assaulting column 
into which has been drafted the whole garrison, is 
once beaten. Though fire-ships rarely destroy the 
vessels against which they are launched, they are 
always themselves consumed. 

First. Dr. Rush's credibility has been impeached 



22 

without any regard to the rules of evidence, and 
without any proofs or even specifications of a want of 
veracity. 

Second. His testimony is outside the range of Mr. 
Meecfs impeachment, inasmuch as it was given before 
the "passions were involved," on whose existence the 
latter predicated his aspersions. 

Thied. There is nothing derogatory to Dr. Rush's 
character in any particular, in the matter of Mr. 
Reed's specifications, though the collocation and 
manner of statement are ofiensive. 

Fourth. His testimony is corroborated by its own 
intrinsic evidence and by extrinsic proofs. 

Fifth. It has never been directly contradicted; nor 
has the corroborative testimony relied on ever been 
assailed, otherwise than by the unsupported denial of 
General Reed, who was not only disqualified from 
testifying by his interest in the result, but was also, 
in any such matter, " utterly unworthy of belief." 

Sixth. Mr. Reed's aspersions are utterly at va- 
riance with cotemporaneous opinions of Dr. Rush. 

First. Dr. Rush's testimony is entitled to no 
weight if Mr. Reed's assertion that he was " utterly 



23 

unworthy of belief" is correct. This must be estab- 
lished, however, in accordance with widely adopted, 
long-established rules — by the evidence of those 
who, knowing the character of the impeached witness 
for veracity amongst his neighbors and acquaint- 
ances, from the badness of his rejmtatwn, in this 
respect, would not believe him on his oath. Under 
the avalanche with which he would have been over- 
whelmed from tradition, eulogiums, biographies, 
encyclopaedias, and histories, Mr. Reed does not 
venture an assertion that Dr. Rush's reputation for 
veracity, amongst those who knew him, was bad. 
!N^or is the utterance of a single falsehood proven ; 
nor any act involving a deficiency in truthfulness. 

Whence then does he draw the conclusion that Dr. 
Rush was utterly unworthy of belief? From his 
failure to appreciate Washington's military ability ? 
From his letter to Richard H. Lee manifesting a 
desire to punish the Tories who had maltreated his 
father-in-law? From a surgical statement as to the 
immediate cau^se of General Mercer's death ? From 
the charges of mal-practices and neglect, whose 
truth Mr. Reed does not question, made to Dr. Ship- 
pen's official chief? From his slight participation in 
the politics of Pennsylvania, of whose demoralizing 
eifects none better than Mr. Reed can speak ? From 
Mr. Jacob Rush's disappointment in obtaining an 
office of which he was little desirous? These are 
all the specifications which have been accumulated 



24 

in a thirty j^ears' apprenticeship to the trade of the 
literary scavenger, and as they do not sustain the 
charge, it falls. 'No greater tribute to Dr. Rush 
could be paid by the most lavish praise, than by this 
failure of Mr. Reed, who lacked neither time, spleen, 
nor ability, and whom no regard for the living or 
dead restrained ; nor could a more damaging admis- 
sion of the hopelessness of General Reed's cause be 
made, than by the paltriness of the expedients to 
which his able advocate has felt obliged to resort. 

Secondly. Dr. Rush's testimony stands unim- 
peached by 3fr. Heed, if it can be shown that it was 
given before his " passions were involved." 

In January, 1777, when no such passions could 
have been subserved by General Reed's defamation, 
as he had not yet deserted the ranks of the Anti- 
Constitutionalists, this testimony, as subsequently 
repeated, was first given. So Dr. and Judge Rush 
assert, in their respective certificates of 3d March, 
1783, and the former refers to Mr. John Adams, 
whose comments are quoted, as one who heard it. 
Every man, from his own personal experience, esti- 
mates the extent to which falsehood is induced by 
private and political passions. If Mr. Reed believes 
that these passions would instigate two persons, not 
hopelessly depraved, to the deliberate utterance of 
false, malicious, easily detected untruths, he cannot 



25 

be convinced that these confirmatory conversations 
were ever held ; but the more fortunate experience of 
others will, it is thought, render an appeal to their 
beliefs much more successful. A single line of de- 
nial from Mr. Adams, too, who was never involved in 
Pennsylvania affairs, and whose politics were widely 
different ft-om those of Dr. Rush, at any time during 
the succeeding thirty years, would have convicted 
the latter of a gross falsehood. This denial was never 
obtained. Kor would Dr. Rush, if the conversation 
was imaginary, have assigned to Mr. Adams a ]3art 
in it which could have been so much more safely 
filled by any one of the hosts whom the havoc of war 
had swept into the grave. 

In this connection, in illustration of the danger of 
touching pitch, occurs one of the too numerous 
instatices of the "vice" of mis-quotation which, 
" seen too oft" by Mr. Reed in his researches in Ban- 
croft, he has at last himself " embraced." Dr. Rush 
never said of the effect of General Reed's conversa- 
tion that it "did not diminish his respect," but 
merely that for other qualities he " still respected" 
the latter. 

The THIRD proposition will be demonstrated by a 
detailed examination of the different specifications 
of Mr. Reed's charges, in their order. 

He has painted a portrait and labelled it "Dr. 



26 

Rush," the lineaments of which are those of a " re- 
vengeful, exasperated man," a " tattler," a " fisher in 
troubled waters," a " scoffer at the grave of the 
dead," a monger in "scandal," a "writer of anony- 
mous defamation," "a busy, restless, indirect man, 
emphatically a man of animosities,'''' a man " utterly 
unworthy of belief as a witness for anything in which 
his passions were involved," in the drawing of which, 
inasmuch as it cannot be identified with its ostensi- 
ble original, he must have imitated the practice of 
those artists who, lacking the means or the inclina- 
tion to procure suitable models, delineate the human 
figure after intense examination of a mirror hung 
before themselves. 

Safe in the knowledge that on behalf of the dead 
no action for slander will lie, Mr. Reed gleefully re- 
fers to the "fearful retribution" Dr. Rush experienced 
in the "fierce invectives" of Wm. Cobbett, "the Por- 
cupine;" but, he fails to narrate the sequel, of a 
refusal of the satisfaction then usually accorded by 
gentlemen, and an award, by a jury, of damages in 
the amount of $5000, subsequently apportioned by 
Dr. Rush amongst the poor. 

After having admitted that he was utterly unfit to 
judge of Dr. Rush's professional abilities, Mr. Reed 
sneers at him for recording "in his dreary ISTote-book 
that General Mercer did not die of his wounds, but 
from natural causes." A similar statement is to be 



27 

found in well-iiuthenticated cotemporaneons diaries, 
and Mr. Reed ought not to expect that any one, after 
a lapse of ninety years, will prefer his opinion on a 
medical question to that of a competent physician, 
at the time. 

Mr. Adams' letter to Dr. Eush of the 18th April, 
1790, quoted as if written in complaint of the latter, 
was penned in a far diiferent spirit, and breathes sen- 
timents of the warmest friendship and most cordial 
esteem. 

Without any pretence that his charges were mali- 
cious or unfounded, Dr. Rush is sneered at as still 
engaged in the " work of secret (?) accusation which 
never seemed to intermit," because, to the Comman- 
der-in-Chief, he preferred charges against Dr. Shippen 
of mal-practices and neglect, in the office of Director- 
General of the Middle Department, which had come 
under his official notice whilst he was himself Sur- 
geon-General of military hospitals for the same de- 
partment. 

Must we accuse Judge Rush of the invention of 
one, and Dr. Rush of the invention, with every mi- 
nuteness of detail, of three, imaginary conversations, 
because of General Reed's ill-mannered response to 
the former's intimation, through a third party, " not 
wishing to make a point of it or to urge it, that he 
would be willing to accept the Attorney-Generalship 
in case of an appointment" ? If it must be inferred 



28 

from Mr. Reed's remarks that pique or revenge would 
carry him thus far, and he will not claim to be judged 
by a more favorable standard than that by which he 
judges, it is much to be regretted, that in taking to 
Ms quills in imitation of the "Porcupine" he so much 
admires, he has also fallen into the error into which 
its fury leads it, whilst emptying its quiver, of help- 
lessly exposing to its assailants its weakest parts. 

The matter, however, upon which Mr. Reed most 
relies as demonstrating Dr. Rush's want of credibility, 
is his failure, during the early years of the Revolution, 
to appreciate "Washington's military abilities. Dr. 
Rush's unflinching determination to maintain to the 
end the struggle for his country's independence is 
admitted. In common, however, with John and 
Samuel Adams, and many other leading men of the 
time, during those gloomy and disastrous years in 
which "Washington's great talents were obscured, he 
felt that intense, unselfish craving for success, through 
change, which every loyal man experienced with such 
fearful earnestness during the stagnant years of the 
recent Rebellion. Having irretrievably committed 
himself by signing the Declaration of Independence, 
Dr. Rush, though he felt no inclination to retrace his 
steps or to temporize, was anxious beyond measure 
to see at the head of the army one who could chain 
Victory to its banners. Did an error of judgment 
under such circumstances affect his veracity? 



29 

Early in 1778, Dr. Eush addressed to Patrick 
Henry a letter, not signed, in which were these 
words : — 

"The Northern Army has shown us what Ameri- 
cans are capable of doing with a General at their 
head. The spirit of the Southern Army is no ways 
inferior to the spirit of the I^orthern. A Gates, a 
Lee, or a Conway, would in a few weeks render them 
an irresistible body of men. The last of the above 
officers has accepted the new office of Inspector- 
General of our arni}^, in order to reform abuses ; but 
the remedy is only a palliative one. In one of his 
letters to a friend he says, 'A great and good God 
hath decreed America to be free, or the General and 
weak counsellors would have ruined her lonof ao-o.' " 
Of the weakness of some of Washington's counsellors 
and of the abuses in the army, General Reed himself, 
in his correspondence, had frequently complained. 
ISlo desire to " stab in the dark" is displayed in any 
part of this letter, but merely the wish to " awaken, 
enlighten, and alarm our country." Dr. Rush's pen 
was restrained by no profuse oral and wi'itten protes- 
tations of respect for Washington's military abilities, 
by no friendly relation as custodian of his secrets, 
and by no membership in his military family. That 
"Washington was deeply wounded by this as by all 
the other evidence of a non-appreciation by the public 
of his labors, is beyond doubt, and, thus wounded, 



30 

he said, "The anonymous letter with which you were 
pleased to favor me, was written by Dr. Rush, so far 
as I can judg-e from a similitude of hands. This man 
has been elaborate and studied in his professions of 
regard for me; and long since the letter to you." 
There was of course in Dr. Rush's professions of re- 
gard for Washington as a man — professions in which 
few -failed to unite — nothing inconsistent with the 
distrust of his military capacity expressed to Mr. 
Henry. . 

This letter was not anonymous in a censurable 
sense. Its writer, whilst entertaining no wish to 
withhold its authorship from his correspondent, might 
well take precautions, whilst communications were so 
uncertain, to conceal it from strangers into Avhose 
hands it might fall.* For the purpose of giving the 
clew to Mr. Henry, the letter, though written from 
Yorktown, announced that it was from one of his 
''• Pliilaclelpliia friends," and directed attention to the 
handwriting, which was so marked that Washington, 
who had no better reason for recognizing it than Mr. 
Henry, had no difficulty in its identification. 

If Dr. Rush's mere i^eiyetition of the anecdote of 
Washington's interview with the clergy is open to 
the charge of " scoffing at the dead" (for the por- 
tions of the Ana not quoted show that the comment 

* The reader is referred to Peter Force's Archives, 4th series, vol. i. pp. 
892 and 963, for instances of a like precaution adopted by General Joseph 
Keed in two letters to Josiah Quiucy, Jr. 



31 



objected to was not his, but Mr. Asa Green's), then is 
Jeiferson, who reduced it to writing, equally guilty, 
and Mr. Reed, who so long after it Avas forgotten has 
resurrected it, more guilty than all. 

Fourth. The testimony of Dr. Rush bears upon it 
the sterling mark of truth. Its intrinsic evidence is 
strongly in its favor. All the details are given clearly 
and naturally, without any of that haziness of state- 
ment which characterizes a garbled story. General 
Reed's subsequently published correspondence, too, 
evinces the same strong dislike of 'New England 
troops to which Dr. Rush testifies. 

As to the extrinsic proof. 

General Reed's previous history induces a more 
ready belief that the words reported by Dr. Rush 
were really uttered by him, than if they were charged 
against one who had been an early and uncompro- 
mising advocate of separation from Great Britain. 
Almost against his will, as will be shown, he became 
a participant in the war, an officer of the army, and 
a supporter of the Declaration of Independence. 

He conducted a unilateral correspondence with 
Lord Dartmouth, the British Secretary of State for 
the Colonies, in which, for upwards of eighteen 
months, he kept the latter fully informed of the pro- 
gress of disaffection in America. About two months 
before the battle of Lexington, viz., on the 10th day 
of February, 1775, amidst the din of preparation for 



32 

tlie then almost inevitable conflict, though condemn- 
ing the British taxation and coercion measures, to 
which he was, of course, always opposed, he wrote : — 

" If the confidence my fellow-citizens repose in me, and which 
has led to more activity than I wished or intended, have not ren- 
dered me unworthy of your Lordship's further notice, (!) I shall 
cheerfully continue my communications; and do with. sincerity 
declare that my present or any future influence shall be faithfully 
exerted, not to widen the present breach, but to dispose the minds 
of those around me to such measures as may be consistent with 
the dignit}' and interest of the Mother Country and the safety of 
this. I hope and believe I have already been instrumental in 
guarding this city and province from measures which had an irri- 
tating tendenc}' ; and while I am thus emploj-ed, I trust I am act- 
ing the part of a good subject and citizen." In the Provincial 
Convention which had just met, "it was intended to take some 
steps towards arming and disciplining the province, a measure 
which I opposed both publicly and privately." 

To his wife, in a letter announcing and half apolo- 
gizing for his sudden acceptance of the position of 
Adjutant-General to which he had been elected on 
the 5th day of June, 1776, he said : — 

" I have been much induced to this measure by observing that 
this Province will be a great scene of part}^ and contention this 
summer. The courts are stopped, consequently no business done 
in my profession, and at all events my time so engrossed that I 
have not a moment to devote to keeping up my stock or adding 
to my law knowledge. The appointments of the office are equal 
to £700 per annum, which will help to support us till these calami- 
tous times are at an end. Besides, this post is honorable, and if 
the issue is favorable to America, must put me on a respectable 



33 

scale.* Should it be otherwise, I have done enough to expose 
myself to ruin." 

To his brother-in-law, Mr. Pe Berclt, 20th Febru- 
ary, 1777, he said : — 

" I then waited impatiently for a public disclosure of some 
terms or propositions from Lord Howe and his brother. If they 
had been such as would give my country any (!) security against 
the unlimited powers of your Parliament to deprive us of our 
property at any time and in what proportions they pleased, I 
should have applied myself most earnestly to have brought about 
an accommodation, and if those in power had wantonly or wickedly 
rejected the proposition, I should have retired from the army to 
a private and obscure station." 

To Robert Morris, after the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, in referring to Lord Howe's Commission, 
he said : — 

" I fear the die is irrevocably cast, and that we must play the 
game, however doubtful or desperate. My princiioles have been 
much misunderstood if they were supposed to militate against 
reconciliation." 

These sentiments were so well known to the ene- 
mies of his country, that in 1776, and again in 1778, 
he was applied to by the British Commissioners as 

* " Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell 

From Heaven ; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts 
Were always downward bent, admiring more 
The riches of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold, 
Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed 
In vision beatific." 

3 



34 



being one most likely to lend a willing ear to propo- 
sitions of compromise. 

Again, in corroboration. Thongh the occm-rence 
of a conversation can only be directly proven by those 
who overheard it, evidence of other conversations of 
a like nature by the same person at about the same 
time, and of a general frame of mind in harmony w ith 
that indicated by it, is strongly persuasive, if not 
in exact accordance with strict legal rules. 

By Mr. Charles Pettit, his brother-in-law, and most 
intimate friend, who subsequently became one of his 
executors, General Reed was believed to have "given 
up the contest." Mr. Reed condemns, as "hearsay 
gossip," the testimony of Col. Ellis and Mr. Daven- 
port ; but, in an investigation like this, such evidence 
is free from the objection which so justly excludes 
"hearsay" from the courts, viz., the impossibility of 
obtaining any refutation of it before the rendering of 
the verdict. Wherever there was the slightest open- 
ing, as in the case of Mr. Wm. Bradford's testimony, 
General Reed was very prompt in procuring the de- 
nial of the person with whom any damaging conver- 
sation was alleged to have been held. His failure to 
obtain from Mr. Pettit, with whom he was so inti- 
mate, any such denial, is very significant. AYe thus, 
in effect, have one of his bosom friends testifying to 
his belief, one which without imperative cause he 
would have been slow to entertain and still slower to 



35 

confess, that General Reed, in December, 1776, "bad 
given up the contest." 

To Mr. P. Dickinson, whom, though an officer in 
the militia force, no official position compelled to be 
with the army, General Reed, on "seeing him there," 
at a time when the exigency demanded the presence 
of all who could bear arms, expressed surprise. 

General Cadwalader, whose veracity Mr. Reed has 
not openly and directly impeached, but at Avhom he 
has aimed side blows, testifies to utterances of Gene- 
ral Reed, in December, 1776, much more censurable 
than those reported by Dr. Rush. 

Mistakes are attributed to General Cadwalader in 
two minor particulars, for the purpose of discrediting 
the general accuracy of his memory. 

The first is thus imagined by Mr. Reed : — 

" Again, there is an illustration of mistaken memory, when, in 
reply to the statement in Mr. Reed's address, that he went to 
Burlington before day, but did not leave Dunk's Ferr}- till he 
saw the last man embarked, General Cadwalader in his pamphlet 
of 1783, said this could not be, for 'there is no circumstance bet- 
ter ascertained than that many of the men were not brought back 
till eight o^clock the next morning.' Writing to General Washing- 
ton, on the very day (25th), Cadwalader said : ' We concluded to 
withdraw the troops that had passed, but could not effect it till 
near four o'' clock in the morning. The whole was then ordered to 
march back to Bristol.' Four o'clock on Christmas morning is 
certainly long ' before day.' " 

Though the truth or falsity of the statement made 
by General Cadwalader in his pamphlet was in the 



3G 

knowledge of hundreds of living men, no one ven- 
tured to contradict it. An announcement of a Avitli- 
drawal at four o'clock appears inconsistent with the 
return of "many of the men" four hours later, to no 
one whom the recent Rebellion made familiar Avith 
the evil of "straggling from the ranks." General 
Reed's assertion, to which exception was taken, was, 
not that he had waited for the embarkation of the 
main body, but for that of the " last man.''^ 

The second inaccuracy is thus manufactured : — 

" The troops at Bristol crossed the Delaware on the 2Vth, it being 
supposed that Washington was still on the left bank. On landing, 
it was ascertained that he had re-crossed, and it became a question 
what should be done by the force below. Writing of this, in 1783, 
General Cadwalader, in his pamphlet says, that on the receipt of 
news that Washington had re-crossed, ' Colonel Hitchcock pro- 
posed returning to Bristol. I instantly declaimed my determination 
against it, and recommended an attack on Mount Holly, as, 
from the information we had of the force there, we might easily 
carr}^ it.' There now lies before me a certified copy from the State 
Department of a letter from General Cadwalader to Washington, 
dated on the very day of the occurrence, ' Burlington, ten o'clock, 
2Tth,' in which he saj's : * * * '/ thought it most jjrudent to re- 
treat, but Colonel Reed was of opinion that we rhiglit safely pro- 
ceed to Burlington, and recommended it warml}^,'" &c. 

The implied conflict of statements is produced by 
Mr. Reed's closing General Cadwalader's sentence, 
which, in full, reads: "Col. Hitchcock proposed re- 
turning to Bristol. I instantly declared my determina- 



37 

tion against it, and recommended an attack on Mount 
Holly, as, from the information of the force there, wc 
might easily carry it, and sliould then have a retreat 
ojjen towards Philadelphia, if necessary,''^ with the 
words "might easily carry it." He quotes so as to 
make it appear that but two courses of action were 
discussed, a retreat and an advance, whilst, in reality, 
there was a medium course, combining both, viz : a 
march to Mount Holly, which General Cadwalader, 
who from the outset opposed the others, strongly 
flivored. 

A further attempt is made to refute General Cad- 
walader's assertion that General Reed had informed 
him he had advised his brother to remain at Burlino-- 
ton, "and if the enemy took ijossession of the town, to 
take protection," by means of an affidavit by Mr. 
Bowes Reed that he was never advised to "see^" 
i:)rotection, which besides being evasive, is wholly 
irrelevant to the real issue. General Reed's report 
to General Cadwalader of the advice he had given. 

In imitation of the military tactics of the Celestials, 
with whom dragons and gongs are esteemed more 
potent than powder and ball, the ghost of "party 
rage" is conjured from its grave by the modern Witch 
ofUndor. Again, however, it is found that the tes- 
timony, first given in the Campaign of 1777, ante- 
dates the era of party passions. Alexander Hamil- 
ton proves this, and Mr. Reed can only evade his 



38 

blow by suppressing his exact words and erroneously 
stating their substance. He says: — 

'• There is not a trace of General Cadwalader liaA'ing breathed 
this accusation until the Treason trials of 1178. The onh' attempt 
to show that he ever whispered it before, is in Col. Hamilton's 
letter of the 14th of March, 1783, in which he says that after an 
eftbrt of memory ' he thinks^ the matter was mentioned .to him 
some time in the Campaign of IT 77, and with great caution he 
adds : ' It is the part of candour to observe that I am not able to 
distinguish with certainty whether the recollection I have of these 
words arises from the strong impression made b}^ 3'our declara- 
tion at the time or from having heard them more than once re- 
peated within a j^ear past.' " 

The extent of Mr. Reed's misquotations will appear 
upon reading Col. Hamilton's own language : — 

Philadelphia, 14tli Marcb, 1783. 
Dear Sir : Though disagreeable to appear in any manner in a 
personal dispute; yet I cannot, in justice to j^ou, refuse to comply 
with the request contained in 3-our note. I have delaj^ed answer- 
ing it, to endeavor to recollect, with more precision, the time, 
place, and circumstances of the conversation to which 3'ou allude. 
I cannot, however, remember with certainty" more than this ; that 
some time in the campaign of seventy-seA^en, at headquarters in 
this State, you mentioned to me and some other gentlemen of 
General Washington's famil}-, in a confidential wa}^, that at some 
period in seventy-six, I think after the American army crossed the 
Delaware in its retreat, Mr. Reed had spoken to you in terms of 
great despondency respecting American affairs, and had intimated 
that he thought it time for gentlemen to take care of themselves, 
and that it was unwise any longer to follow the fortunes of a 
ruined cause, or something of a similar import. It runs in my 
mind that the expressions 3'ou declared to have been made use of 



39 

by Mr. Reed were, that he thought he ought no longer to " risque 
his life and fortune with the shattered remains of a broken armj^;" 
but it is the part of candor to observe that I am not able to dis- 
tinguish with certainty whether the recollection I have of these 
words arises from the strong impression made by your declara- 
tion at the time, or from having heard them more than once re- 
peated within a year past. 

I am, dear sir, with great esteem, 

Your obedient servant. 
To General Cadwalader. A. HAMILTON. 

Col. Hamilton ""remeTubers luitJi certainty'^'' that 
some time in the campaign of 1777 the matter was 
mentioned to him, and also that the substance of the 
conversation was that fii;st given by him. The pre- 
cise phraseology, as stated in the last sentence, was 
alone a little doubtful. 

Mr. Reed labors to show such treatment of his 
ancestor by General Cadwalader as was inconsistent 
with a belief of his own charges. The latter's 
answer to a somewhat similar argument by General 
Reed, needs no supplement now. 

FiPTH. In discussing the weight to be attached to 
General Reed's denial of a portion of the charges 
against him, it will l^e shown that he was guilty of 
many falsehoods, and that, therefore, where his own 
interests were involved, he was " utterly unworthy of 
belief" After having ignored every rule of evidence 
himself^ Mr. Reed cannot now object, in resisting his 
guerilla attack, to this irregular mode of impeaching 



40 

the credibility of one not legally admissible as a 
witness. 

General Keed's mendacity will not be i^roven by 
any quotations from the discredited and discreditable 
" Yalley Forge" letters. Two publications alone will 
be used, the one knoAvn as the " Cadwalader' Pam- 
phlet," the other a work whose descriptions of its 
hero's great deeds — deeds which may be eulogized 
in the words by which faith has been defined* — are 
made life-like by a recital which consumes fully as 
much time in the telling as was required for the doing, 
and of which may be asserted what was said of the 
picturesque style of Macaulay's History, and with 
more truth, "It reads like a romance" — the "Life and 
Correspondence of General Eeed by his Grandson." 
Before entering the pasteboard palace in which Mr. 
Eeed had enshrined his idol, it was found necessary 
to rearrange a little the cards with which he had 
constructed it ; but then, the privilege of " cutting" 
after those very adroit in shuffling, must be exercised 
in most games of cards. 

Though a careful sifting of the evidence with which 
Mr. Reed has sought to prove the alleged offer of 
£10,000 sterling as a bribe,t leads to an almost inevi- 
table conviction of the truth of Gov. Johnstone's 
emphatic denial of it, especially in view of his candid 
admission, whilst disclaiming their use with General 
Reed, that he had "used other means besides per- 

* Hebrews xi. 1. ' t Life of Reed, vol. i. pp. 381 to 394. 



i 41 

suasions" in some cases, yet, as Mrs. Ferguson, with- 
out authority, may have oiferecl the bribe, and may 
have asserted to the latter that such authority had 
been given her, his assertions in this matter will not 
be discussed under the present head. 

A passing allusion alone will be made both to Gen- 
eral Reed's misrepresentation, during the correspond- 
ence antecedent to the pamphlets, of Mr. IngersoU's 
report of General Cadwalader's remarks as to the 
time he Avas expecting to leave Philadelphia; and to 
his assertions in his Address to the Public that he 
had " left a lucrative practice and fair prospects to 
impoverish himself in their service," though, as he 
admitted in a private letter to his brother-in-law, 
"the war being brought to our own doors" '^ ^ ^ 
" banished every idea of law, so that the profession for 
which it had been my earliest study to qualify my- 
self is become entirely useless," and though he en- 
tered the public service, partly, at least, as the letter 
to his wife, already quoted, shows, because " its ap- 
pointments, equal to £700 per annum," would help to 
support his family. 

General Reed, however, was accused by General 
Cadwalader in these words of what he never ven- 
tured to deny : — 

" And further (with respect to your veracity), if any 
other instance is necessary, let me add one which hap- 
pened at camp (at head-quarters) in the year 1777, 
soon after the battle of Germantown, when in my 



42 

hearing, and in the presence of three officers of the 
first rank in the army, yon was charged to your foce 
with a falsehood, and wliich was fully proved the next 
day by the general officer who made the charge." 

The transaction, however, which put npon General 
Reed an ineffaceable brand, is the one so well known 
that its narration is justly chargeable by his grand- 
son, who seems strangely insensible to the strong con- 
demnation which lies therein, with the accusation of 
being " stale."* It grew out of that desire to be on 
the winning side, unlike Dr. Rush's sympathy, Avhich 
Mr. Keed has noticed, with those "nnder a cloud," 
which prompted General Reed, after the brilliant vic- 
tory at Saratoga, whilst for "Washington's military 
capacity, to "Washington himself, he was still loud 
in his protestation of respect, to flatter General Gates 
by saying, " This army, notwithstanding the efforts 
of our amiable (!) chief, has as yet gained no laurels. 
I perfectly agree with the sentiment which leads to 
request your assistance." 

On the 16th day of :N'ovember, 1776, Fort Wash- 
ington, the policy of whose retention had been warmly 
canvassed in the American councils, with its Avhole 

* After all the following matter connected with the Lee-Reed corre- 
spondence was in type, the writer, who had never before seen Mr. John 0. 
Hamilton's history, though it had been referred to by Mr. Reed, found that 
the whole subject had been therein considered in a manner so similar that 
his own will only be regarded as a quotation from Mr. Hamilton. Its 
appositeness, however, is none the less, and it is therefore retained. 



43 

garrison, was captured by the British. "Washington's 
conduct in the matter was by some severely censured, 
but, conceiving that under the instructions of Con- 
gress he had not been permitted to evacuate it, such 
unfavorable criticisms pained him exceedingly. 
General Charles Lee, who had formerly held high 
rank in the British army, was at the time looked upon 
as the probable successor of Washington, against 
whom he was intriguing. General Reed was then 
Washington's Adjutant-General, professed himself 
his bosom friend and warmest admirer, was thorough- 
ly acquainted with his views and feelings, and was 
intrusted with his confidence. To Lee, then in com- 
mand of the rear-guard on the east side of the 
Hudson, whilst basking in the sunshine of his Chief's 
favor, General Reed addressed the following letter. 
The italics in this and the subsequent ones are the 
Avriter's. 

Hackinsac, November 21, 1776. 
Dear General, — The letter 3-011 will receive with this contains 
my sentiments with respect to your present situation. But be- 
sides this I have some additional reasons for wishing most earn- 
estly to have you where the principal scene of action is laid. I 
do not mean to flatter or praise you at the expense of any other, 
hut I confess I do think it is entirely owing to you that this at'iny, 
and the liberties of America, so far as they are dej^endent on it, 
are not totally cut off. You have decision, a quality often wanted 
in minds otherwise valuable, and I ascribe to this our escape from 
York Island, from Kingsbridge, and the Plains, and have no 
doubt, had you been here, the garrison of Mount Washington would 
now have composed X)ai't of this army. All these circumstances 



44 

considered, I confess I ardently wish to see you removed where I 
thinlc there will be little call for your judgment and experience to 
the place where they are likely to Ibe so necessary, nor am I sin- 
gular in my opinion. Every gentleman of the family, the officers 
and soldiers generally, have a confidence in you — the enemy con- 
stantly inquire where you are, and seem to be less confident when 
you are present. Colonel Cadwalader, through a special indul- 
gence, on account of some civilities shown by his family'to General 
Prescott, has been liberated from Isew York without a parole. 
He informs me that the enemy have a southern expedition in view 
— that they hold us ve?'y cheap in consequence of the late affair at 
Fort Washington, ivhere both the plan of defence and execution 
loere contemp)tihle. If a real defence of the lines was intended, 
the number of troojis tvas too few — if the fort only, the garrison 
was too numerous by half . General Washingtoji^s own judgment, 
seconded by representations by us, loould, I believe, have saved the 
men and their arms, but unluckily General Greeners judgment was 
adverse. This kept the GeneraVs mind in a state of suspense till 
the blow was struck. Oh! General, an indecisive inind is one of 
the greatest misfortunes that can befall an army ; how often have 
I lamented it this campaign. All circumstances considered, we 
are in a very awful and alarming situation — one that requires the 
utmost wisdom and firmness of mind. As soon as the season 
will admit, I think yourself and some others should go to Con- 
gress and form the plan of the new army, point out their defects 
to them, and it ma}'- possibly prevail on them to lend their whole 
attention to this great object, even to the exclusion of every 
other. If they will not or cannot do this, I fear all our exertions 
will be vain in this part of the world. Foreign assistance is soli- 
cited, but we cannot expect they will fight the whole battle. But 
artillery and artillerists must be had if possible. I intended to 
say more, but the express is waiting, and I must conclude with 
my clear and explicit opinion that your p)resence is of the last 

importance. 

Yours, &c. 



45 

To this letter, Lee, highly delighted with such 
evidence of disaffection and distrust in Washington's 
military family, replied as follows : — 

Camp, November 24, 1776. 
My Dear Reed, — I received your most obliging, flattering let- 
ter, lament with 3^011 that fatal indecision of mind which in war 
is a much greater disqualification than stupiditj^, or even want of 
personal courage ; accident may put a decisive blunder in the 
right, but eternal defeat and miscarriage must attend the man of 
the best parts if cursed with indecision. The General recom- 
mends in so pressing a manner as almost to amount to an order, 
to bring over the Continental troops under my command, which 
recommendation or order throws me into the greatest dilemma 
from several considerations. Part of the troops are so ill fur- 
nished with shoes and stockings, blankets, &c., that they must 
inevitably perish in this wretched weather. Part of them are to 
be dismissed on Saturday, and this part is the best accoutred for 
service. What shelter we are to find on the other side of the 
river is a serious consideration ; but these considerations should 
not sway me. My reason for not having marched already is that 
we have just received intelligence that Rogers' Corps, the Light 
Horse, part of the Highlanders and another brigade lie in so ex- 
posed a situation as to give the fairest opportunity of being car- 
ried. I should have attempted it last night, but the rain was too 
violent, and when our pieces are wet you know our troops are 
" hors du combat." This night I hope will be better. If we suc- 
ceed we shall be well compensated for the delay ; we shall like- 
wise be able on our retui'u to clear the country of all the articles 
wanted by the enemy. In every view, therefore, the expedition 
must answer. I have just received a most flattering letter from 
Don Luis Yenzaga, Governor of New Orleans. He gives me the 
title of " General de los Estados Unidos Americanos,^' which is a 
tolerable step towards declaring himself our ally in positive terms. 



46 

The substance is, that he is sensible of the vast advantages which 
must result from the separation to his master and nation — that he 
cannot positively enter into a regular system without consulting 
his master, but in the mean time he will render us all the service 
in his power. I onlj^ wait myself for this business of Rogers and 
company being over. I shall then fly to you ; for, to confess a 
truth, I really think our Chief will do better with me -than with- 
out me. 

I am, dear Reed, yours most sincerely, 

CHARLES LEE. 

"This letter was forwarded to camp by express, 
and being supposed to relate to official business, was 
opened and read by Washington, Colonel Reed being 
absent on special duty at Burlington. It appears to 
have wounded him deeply." It was transmitted by 
Washington, with a few cold words of explanation, 
on the 30th of ^N'ovember, 1776. 

Until Lee's capture induced General Reed to hope, 
as he admitted himself, that the former would "be 
sent to Europe, where, of course, there was little 
probability of any one obtaining it," he did not dare 
to assert that the former's letter was not justified by 
his own; but, after this event had occurred, and after 
several months and hosts of opportunities for oral 
and written explanations had passed, his appoint- 
ment as a general of cavalry being then pending, he 
addressed Washington a letter under date of the 8th 
of March, 1777, in which this passage occurs : — 

" I could have wished to have one hour of private conversation 
with 3'ou on the subject of a letter to me written by General Lee 



47 

before his captivity. I deferred it in hopes of obtaining from him 
the letter to which his was an answer. I fear from what we hear 
that he will be sent to England, and of course there will be little 
probability of my obtaining it. While he stays in America, I 
cannot give up my hopes, and in the mean time I most solemnly 
assure you, that you would see in it nothing inconsistent with that 
respect and affection which I have and ever shall hear to your 
person and character. My pressing him most earnestly to join you 
as soon as possible, and mentioning that Mount Washington ivas 
taken before any decision was had respecting it, led to expressions 
and an answer which must have been disapproved by you, and 
which I was far from expecting. I had rather multiply instances 
than repeat assurances of my respect and attachment. No man 
in America, my dear General, more truly and ardently wishes 
3'our honor, happiness, and success, or would more exert himself 
to promote them. I say more upon this occasion from a proba- 
bility that we shall not renew our military connexion, and there- 
fore can have no interest than that of securing j'-our esteem, free 
from all selfish principles." 

On the 4tli of June, 1777, Reed again addressed 
Washington, thus : — 

"The abuse and calumny which, with equal cowardice and base- 
ness, some persons have bestowed, would have given me little 
pain if I did not apprehend that it had lessened me in your friend- 
ship and esteem. In this part I confess I have received the 
severest wound; for I am sure you are too just and discerning to 
suffer the unguarded expressions of another person to obliterate 
the proofs I have given of a sincere disinterested attachment to 
your person and fame, since you first favored me with your 
regard. I am sensible, my dear sir, how difficult it is to regain 
lost friendship, but the consciousness of never having justly for- 
feited yours, and the hope that it may be in my power fully to 
convince 3^ou of it, are some consolation for an event which I never 



48 

think of but with the greatest conceru. In the meantime, my 
dear general, let me entreat of you to judge of me by realities, 
not by appeai^ances, and believe that I never entertained or ex- 
pressed a sentiment incomjpatible with that regard Iprofessed for 
your p)erson and character, and which, whether I shall be so happy 
as to possess jowx future good opinion or not, I shall carry to my 
grave with me." 

Though General Reed asserts that Lee's expres- 
sions, at which Washington took offence, were in no 
way responsive to his own, which contained nothing 
" inconsistent with respect for your character," and 
that the mere mentioning that Mount Washington 
had been taken before any decision was had respect- 
ing it, led to " expressions which must have been dis- 
approved by you, and which I was far from expecting," 
they were, in truth, infinitely more friendly and re- 
spectful than Reed's. Lee thinks " our chief will be 
better with me than without me," laments that " fatal 
indecision of mind which in war is a much greater 
disqualification than stupidity or even want of per- 
sonal courage," and asserts that " eternal defeat and 
miscarriage must attend the man of the best parts if 
cursed with indecision." This is all. Reed however 
says : " It is entirely owing to you tliat this army, and 
the liberties of America so far as they are dependent on 
it, are not totally cut off. You have decision, a quality 
often luanted m minds otherwise valuahle.^^ " Ihave no 
douht, had you heen here, the garrison of Fort Wash- 
iyigton woidd noio have composed j;ar^ of this army.^^ 



49 

He adds that Washington's mind remained in a state 
of suspense till the blow was struck, and philoso- 
phizes : " Oh ! General, an indecisive mind is one of 
the greatest misfortunes that can hefall an army y hoiv 
often have I lamented it in this camiKiign /" 

The following extract from Washington's reply of 
the 14th June, shows that his confidence was com- 
pletely restored by reason of the deceit which was 
thus practised upon him : — 

" I thank you most sincerely for the friendly and affectionate 
sentiments contained in yours of the 4th inst., and assure you that 
I am perfectly convinced of the sincerity of them. True it is, I 
felt myself hurt hy a ceiiain letter ivhich aj^peared at that time to 
be the echo of one from you. I was hurt, not because I thought 
my judgment wronged by the expressions contained in it, but 
because the same sentiments were not communicated immediatelj^ 
to myself. The favorable manner in which your opinions upon all 
occasions had been received, the impression they made, and the 
unreserved manner in which I wished, and required them to be 
given, entitled me, I thought, to your advice upon any point in 
which I appeared to be wanting. To meet with ajUything, then, 
that carried with it a complexion of withholding that advice frovi 
me, and censuring my conduct to another, was such an argument 
of disingenuity, that I teas not a little mortified at it. However, I 
am perfectly satisfied that matters loere not as they appeared from 
the letter alluded to.''^ 

"From this moment," says Mr. Wm. B. Reed, 
" such was the influence of fean^k and man^ly expla- 
nations, all distrust and apparent estrangement were 
4 



50 

removed, and the ancient relations of friendly confi- 
dence effectually restored." 

A fear that Lee would publish his letter must have 
been the bane of Reed's existence, and he appears to 
have taken considerable pains, by friendly assurances, 
to prevent it; for, on the 22d July, 1778, after the 
battle of Monmouth, in reply to Avhat must have been 
an effort of this kind, Lee says to him : — 

" I am pleased in j'our having confirmed me in the opinion I had 
entertained of your regard and friendship, and I am sorry that 
you should suppose me for a single moment capable of availing 
myself of some expressions you had made use of in a confidential 
letter, to embroil you with a man that the public interest certainly 
and perhaps your personal concerns, render it necessary you 
should be on good terms with." 

General Reed, however, prudently saved himself 
from the discredit of being a personal friend of such 
an unpopular man, by informing General Greene, in 
a " confidentiaV letter dated 5th Kov. 1778, that as 
to General'* Lee and himself "We are utterly out. 
After laboring to convince me he had great merit at 
Monmouth, and I to convince him that he had behaved 
very ill, which I knew from his own mouth and my 
own observations" — observations which must have 
antedated the letter that had so pleased Lee — "we 
have parted mutually unconvinced. I only added one 
piece of advice to him, to forbear any reflections on 
the Commander-in-chief." 

Nothing but the strongest confidence in his ability 



51 

to maintain Lee's secrecy, or a belief that the letter 
had been lost, could have emboldened General Reed, 
in the summer of 1779, to make in print, and forward 
to "Washington, the following unblushing asser- 
tions : — 

" In the fall of IT 16, I was extremel}'- anxious that Fort Wash- 
ington should be evacuated ; there was a difference in opinion 
among those whom the General consulted, and he hesitated more 
than I ever knew him on any other occasion, and more than I 
thought the public service admitted. Knowing that General Lee's 
opinion would be a great support to mine, I wrote to him from 
Hackensack, stating the case, and my reasons, and, I think, urg- 
ing him to join me in sentiment at the close of my letter ; and, 
alluding to the particular subject then before me, to the best of 
my recollection, I added this sentence : ' With a thousand good 
and great qualities, there is a want of decision to complete the 
perfect military character.' Upon this sentence, or one to this 
effect, wrote in haste, in full confidence, and in great anxiety for 
the event, is this ungenerous sentiment introduced into the world. 
The event but too fully justified my anxiety ; for the fort was sum- 
moned that very day, and surrendered the next. I absolutely 
deny that there is any other ground but this letter ; and if there 
is, let it be produced. I have now only to add that, though Gene- 
ral Washington soon after, by an accident, knew of this circum- 
stance, it never lessened the friendship which subsisted between 
us. He had too much greatness of mind to suppose himself inca- 
pable of mistake, or to dislike a faithful friend who should note 
an error with such circumstances of respect, and on such an 
occasion." 

All the assertions of this letter are so amazing 
that it is impossible to mark the worst ones by italics. 
The possession of a " thousand great and good quali- 



52 

ties" and an " otherwise perfect military character" 
had never been ascribed to Washington by Reed, and 
as Fort Washington had surrendered five days before 
the letter was written, its design could hardly have 
been to secure a confirmatory opinion from Lee as to 
the propriety of an evacuation. 

"Washington's friendship has eyer been as a tower 
of strength to General Reed ; but, obtained by false 
pretences like those unveiled, it reflects but little 
lustre upon the latter. The trustfulness of Washing- 
ton's nature rendered him peculiarly susceptible to 
the arts of those who surrounded him. General Reed 
himself, in one of his letters, thus cautions him 
against this weakness of which he afterwards so suc- 
cessfully availed himself: "Do not let the goodness 
of your heart subject you to the influence of opinions 
from men in every respect your inferiors." There is 
reason to believe, from the entire cessation of corre- 
spondence and otherwise, that in the year 1781 
Washington became acquainted with the deception 
which had been practised upon him. On the 16th 
day of June, 1781, Lee wrote a letter to Mr. Morris 
" filled," according to Mr. Wm. B. Reed, " with viru- 
lent denunciations of Mr. Reed and his friends." 
The thunder of his denunciations was most probably 
accompanied by the lightning's flash that revealed to 
Washington the "Scarlet Letter." To General 
Greene, on the 1st 'Nov. 1781, General Reed com- 
plains that "the incessant misrepresentations and 



53 

calumnies with respect to myself, and some un- 
friendly characters about him, have raised some pre- 
judices, of what nature I cannot tell.""^ 

"Washington's much relied upon letter to Reed, of 
the 15th September, 1782, written in compliance with 
the latter's pressing request, by its freezing tone, its 
non-responsiveness, its reference to a past confidence 
alone, its lack of indignation at the charges against 
the latter, and an absence of those closing words of 
affection which marked its writer's earlier correspond- 
ence, makes the conjecture of this discovery almost a 
certaint}^ Its probability is not affected by the fact 
that in an official escort furnished "Washington when 
he left Philadelphia in March, 1782, Gen. Reed, 
whose Presidency had expired^ only two months pre- 
viously, was included. Mr. Reed must have felt hard 
driven when he hunted for this straw, through the 
dusty files of the "Freeman's Journal. "f 

Sixth. As to the opinion of Dr. Rush, entertained 
by his cotemporaries. 

Under the plea of "utter unfitness" for the task, to 
which none Avill demur who have witnessed the result 
of his labors upon some of them, Mr. Reed ignores 

* Forgetful of this evidence, Mr. Reed says, " With this exception (a 
letter from his grandfather to Mrs. Reed alluding to Washington's cold- 
ness) / do not find the least trace of the difference which the busy and 
malevolent men of the day have insinuated." 

t Reed's Reply, page 122. 



54: 

the principal portions of Dr. Rush's life, and un- 
dertakes an investigation, similar in kind, however 
dissimilar in results, to that of Professor Owen in 
determining the structure of the Mastodon from one 
of its teeth. As eminence in the medical profession, 
whose practitioners are brought into daily contact 
with the pains and sorrows of life and the stern reali- 
ties of death, has been seldom found conjoined with 
the disposition attributed to Dr. Rush, it was im- 
possible to arrive at a correct estimate of his moral 
character, without considering his merits and career 
as a physician. Belittling observations with his re- 
versed telescope should therefore have contented Mr. 
Reed, without any previous quartering of the object 
to be viewed. 

Truly, and not sneeringly^ may it be said of Dr. 
Rush, in view of the incessant study by which he 
stored his mind with its immense fund of know- 
ledge ; of the labor and toil with which he assisted 
in laying the foundations for the world-wide fame 
of the Philadelphia medical schools; of his con- 
tributions to science ; of his writings, translated into 
many tongues, rewarded by the crowned heads of 
Europe with medals and by the leading scientific 
men of his time with the warmest encomiums ; of 
his active participation in the humane institutions 
of this city ; of his bold and successful confronting 
of an epidemic in whose terrible presence men stood 
spell-bound, or before whose ravages they fled in 



55 

terror ; of his large and wearying practice — that he 
was a '"'''busy'*'' man. 

Even in his brief political career, to which Mr. 
Reed has so slightingly referred, and which was only 
an episode in his "busy" life, he distinguished him- 
self greatly, as a man of strong, decided character, an 
unflinching patriot, an ardent worshipper of liberty. 

In the "Edinburgh Encyclopaedia" it is stated: "In 
June, 1776, he was a member of the Provincial Con- 
ference which met at Philadelphia, and, on the 23d 
day of that month, moved for a committee to draft 
an address expressive of the sense of the Conference 
respecting the independence of the American Colo- 
nies. Dr. Rush, who, with James Smith and Thomas 
McKean, had been appointed for this purpose, the 
next day reported a Declaration, which was adopted 
in the Conference and presented to the American 
Congress the day after. This Declaration, even its 
phraseology, anticipated almost the whole of the 
Declaration of Independence." 

Dr. Rush, with others, was elected to Congress 
for the express purpose of signing the Declaration 
of Index3endence. He there laid or broadened the 
foundations of life-long friendships with many of the 
immortal men of American history, amongst others 
with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, between 
whom, shortly before his death, he effected a recon- 
ciliation, and with whom, through long years of bitter 



political dissensions, he ever preserved the most inti- 
mate relations. 

His foresight and statesmanlike breadth of view, 
may be gathered from a speech he delivered in Con- 
gress, in July, 1776, in the course of which he said: — 

" We represent the people ; we are a nation ; to vote 
by States will keep up colonial distinctions ; and we 
shall be loath to admit new colonies into the confede- 
ration. The voting by the number of free inhabit- 
ants will have the excellent effect of inducing the 
Colonies to discourage slavery. If we vote by num- 
bers, liberty will always be safe ; the larger Colonies 
are so providentially divided in situation as to render 
any fear of their combining visionary. The more a 
unan aims at serm7ig America, the more he serves his 
colony ; / am not ])leading the cause of Pennsylvania y 
I consider myself a citizen of America^ 

The spontaneous tributes of respect which were 
cast upon Dr. Rush's grave whilst the memory of his 
virtues and the grief for his loss were still fresh, 
were paid to those features of character most incon- 
sistent with the existence of defects such as those 
alleged by Mr. Reed. These features too were selected 
because they were salient ones, and not because they 
had been impeached or assailed ; for, until the advent 
of Mr. Reed, no one had been found, so reckless of 
that charity to the dead he had himself so frequently 
invoked, of the feelings of the living with whom he 
was on terms of social intimacy, of the statements, 



57 

aye, more, of the truth of history, as to assert of Dr. 
Rush that he was " utterly unworthy of belief." 

In "Kees' Cyclopaedia" is found this passage: — 

" Above his eminence, said the Rev. Dr. Staughton, 
as a patriot and physician, rose his character as a 
Christian. Convinced of the truth of the Scriptures, 
he endeavored to promote their universal circulation. 
His defence of the Bible as a school-book, written at 
a time when infidelity carried a more brazen front 
than at the present day, has been highly beneficial to 
his country. He was a prime mover of the Phila- 
delphia Bible Society, the first established in the 
United States. He was uniform in the discharge of 
Christian duties, and died professing a hope in the 
Saviour of sinners." 

In the " Encyclopaedia Americana" it is said : " He 
was moreover philanthropic, kind, and religious." 

In the "]S"ew American Cyclopaedia" that: "He 
had the highest reverence for the Holy Scriptures, 
and was equally distinguished for his piety as for 
his learning." 

The celebrated Dr. Hosack, in an address before 
the College of Physicians and Surgeons, delivered 
on the 3d ]N"ov. 1813, said :— 

" But the virtues of the heart, like the faculties of 
his mind, were also in continued exercise for the 
benefit of his fellow men, While the numerous 
humane, charitable, and religious associatioiis which 
do honor to the city of Philadelphia, bear testimony 



58 

to the philanthropy and piety which animated the 
bosom of their departed benefactor ; let it also be re- 
membered that, as with the Good Samaritan, the 
poor were the objects of his peculiar care, and that 
in the latter and more prosperous years of his life, 
one-seventh of his income was expended upon the 
children of affliction and want. The last act of Dr. 
Rush was an act of charity, and the last expression 
which fell from his lips was an injunction to his son, 
' Be indulgent to the poor.' " 

Dr. David Ramsay, in an address before the Medi- 
cal Society of South Carolina at Charleston, in June, 
1813, said :— 

" Piety to God was an eminent trait in the charac- 
ter of Dr. Rush. In all his printed works and in all 
his private transactions he expressed the most pro- 
found respect and veneration for the great Eternal." 

In Thacher's "American Medical Biography" it is 
stated that " Dr. Rush readily forgave injuries and 
the ingratitude of those on whom he had conferred 
favors." 

Dr. Francis, in the course of an Address before the 
Rutgers' Medical Faculty, which has been incorpo- 
rated into many of the standard biographies and 
encyclopsedias, said : — 

" There are other qualities which entitle Dr. Rush 
to our respect and efSteem. In private life his dis- 
position and deportment were in the highest degree 
exemplary. Admired and courted for his intellectual 



59 

endowments, he riveted the affections of all those 
who enjoyed the pleasure of an intimate acquaint- 
ance. The affability of his manners, the amiable- 
ness of his temper, and the benevolence of his 
character, were ever conspicuous. He was ardent 
in his friendships, and forgiving in his resentments ; 
and yet entertaining a due regard for himself and a 
nice sense of honor, he possessed a manly independ- 
ence of spirit, which disdained everything mean and 
servile. He had an extraordinary command of lan- 
guage, and always imparted his thoughts in a pecu- 
liarly impressive and eloquent manner. His elo- 
quence as a public teacher surpassed that of all his 
contemporaries. 

"He never evinced any of that haughtiness and 
affectation of importance which sometimes attach to 
men of eminence. He was a believer in Christianity 
from an examination of its principles and the deepest 
conviction. The purity of its doctrines and the ex- 
cellence of its precepts were a frequent topic of his 
conversation ; its practical influence upon his conduct 
through life he often acknowledged, and cherished 
with a fervent hope the animating prospects it affords. 
With the good old Bishop Burnet he fully coincided, 
'that a man living according to the rules of religion, 
becomes the wisest, the best, the happiest creature he 
is capable of being.' His w^ritings in numerous 
places bear testimony to his Christian virtues; he 
designed to conclude his literary and professional 



60 

labors with a distinct work on the medicine of the 
Bible ; and in a letter written a short time before his 
fatal illness he candidly declares that he had acquired 
and received nothing from the world which he so 
highly prized, as the religions principles he received 
from his parents. To inculcate those principles' which 
flow from the source of all truth and purity, and to 
impart them as a legacy to his children, was an object 
dear to his heart, and which he never failed to pro- 
mote by constant exhortation, and the powerful influ- 
ence of his own example." 

Jeiferson, in a letter to John Adams of the 27th 
May, 1813, announcing Dr. Rush's death, says : — 

" Another of our patriots of '76 is gone, my dear 
sir, another of the Signers of the Independence of our 
country. And a better man than Rush could not 
have left us, more benevolent, more learned, of finer 
genius, or more honest." 

It is not deemed necessary to quote further from 
the immense mass of similar testimony at hand, inas- 
much as no eulogium of Dr. Rush is here designed. 

In conclusion, it is greatly to be hoped, that when 
next Mr. Reed assumes the offensive defensive, his 
production will be a little the latter and not so exclu- 
sively the former, and further, that his great powers will 
be exercised in behalf of a more worthy person than the 
one who admitted of himself in one of those spasms 
of truth with which the most mendacious are some- 



61 

times seized, that he was '''' not worth purchasing ,'''' and 
whose want of importance was such that Mr. Ban- 
croft, when summoned by his advocate (Reed's Reply, 
p. 84), was compelled to say : — 

"In looking through the archives here (London) 
which have been opened to me with great liberality, 
I have looked for traces of your grandfather, hut as yet 
have found 7iothing of much imjwrtance.'''' 

And the ever friendly Mr. Sparks, who would have 
found it difficult to count the number of times the 
name of Washington was mentioned, to testify: — 

" In the public offices in London I have examined 
all the correspondence between the British officers in 
America and the Ministers during the war. I have 
no recollection of seeing Ge7ieral Seed^s name ynen- 
tioned in these papers on any occasion.'''' 



A CRITICISM 



ME. WM. B. REED'S ASPERSIONS 



CHARACTER OF DR. BEN.JAMIN RUSH, 



WITH AN INCIDENTAL CONSIDERATION OF 



GENERAL JOSEPH REED'S CHARACTER. 



MEMBER OF THE FHILADELPHIA BAR. 



" An<l he that stands upon a slippery place, 
Makes nice of no vile hold to stay him up.'' — King John. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
COLLINS, PRINTKR, 705 JAYNE STREET. 

1867. 






M 









&ri'^^ 












»3 












"> :>- -SOL. 






S3 >^^ 















4^i 



?d#: 















sin 

^# lei 

>z>> :>-:^ . 






- --» >-■ - :> ■ ^ 












:>3^3 '^^ 
'^ -^3^3^^_. ^«S 






^>3^ 
"^>-3?3>-' 






^. -as? 
^1 



^^^^ 






^->^^^ 















SB:! 












3 ^»S3E>^ 



























• :»' 3' ::> ■' 

■:> :> .3 >:■■:> 



r^^>' 3'^''^>>'~=- 









7>>"^ :) ::> ;2> 












:^5 



3 7>:^-<* ,'^^ 



':^'iP33i3 



1,P 3>i3 ^ 









>'3> 3 



>3>3 



j^ ^ :>■ > 3' _^- i3» ,.j> 



~> > O 3 



5 ' E3> 
3>i73> 






> 


^ ^-^ 




> :> 




3 r> 




.> 3> 




3 :> 


) 


> :> 


3 ^ 


^? - 


■:> 


T> 


> 


I> 


:> ^'' 


A> 


z> ■■'- 



^3'3^:>^-,f^ 

^^-^3^3 >3^, 



3 3^:3t^ 

3:>-^3i'4, 
"33:>'>^' 

< 5> :> J> V 

> j> 3 :^ ^ ^ 






:>35»33, 
:>3BO>_ 

'T>33»3:5 "1^ 

:>>>3>:^ 

:>i33 . 

» ^33-_ 



:>^^> 



O 'p ^ 



33> :> 

>3 3- 

: 7> -3. 

:3>:3 4, 






5 J> 3 3 
V ^ 3 3 

,z> 3 3 
i> 3 3 

3 -^ 

^ ? 



;> > ^ 
3 3 :» 
3 3 > 
3 3 11> 
> :> 3> 
3 3 3> 
3 3 > 
3 3 3» 
:> 3 » 



?^::z> 3:>z 



»>)':>, ,3:: 



> ^>i:3 
:3> ■jM>-2> 






n 



^3 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



l| !|il! 

011 769 389 2 



m 




•IHl^B* 




»v 



